How To Make An Easy Lace Knit Shawl Pattern

Working with lace knitting patterns is like switching from hot coffee to iced lattes, from flats to sandals, from wool to linen. It’s so much fun to move into something lighter and airier for spring and summer. In this tutorial, you will learn five different lace patterns and the details required to transform these beautiful pieces into a simple shawl.

First of all, don’t let lace intimidate you! Lace is created by mixing stitch increases and decreases in various ways to create a pattern. Some increases and decreases keep the stitches looking straight, while some tilt the look of the pattern to the left or to the right. The first set of repeats in any lace may seem tricky, but before long you’ll be flying through the patterns with ease. With these lace patterns, the stitch count remains the same for every row so you can always check to make sure you’re on target.

Now go find a gorgeous linen or silk yarn, choose one of these lace patterns below and let’s get knitting!

I chose to share with you laces that are all a multiple of either 3 or 6 stitches to keep the math simple. I kept my cast-on stitch count the same for each swatch. You can see by the variety of swatch size below that each lace pattern creates varying sizes of fabric. Additionally, your choice of yarn, needle size, and the tension with which you knit will all affect the size of your finished piece. Keep this in mind as you design or think about your own project.

Lace Pattern 1

Key:

– k: knit

– yo: yarn over (Note: Bring yarn to front of work, then knit as usual. The working yarn will create an extra stitch.)

– sl2 k1 P2sso: Slip two stitches as if to knit, knit 1, pass the 2 slipped stitches over the knit stitch. (Note: Slipping a stitch simply means moving a stitch from your left hand needle to your right. In this case, you put the needle into the stitch as if you were going to knit. Then, as you slide it, the part of the stitch (or leg) that sits in front of the needle switches which is part of the design.)

Key:

Stitches:

– Row 1: k1,*k3tog but leave those 3 stitches on left hand needle, yo and k3tog again and removing the 3 stitches from left hand needle*, repeat from * to* as necessary

– Row 2: Purl all stitches on wrong side/even rows

– Row 3: *k3tog but leave these 3 stitches on left hand needle, yo and k3tog again (the same three stitches) and now pull the 3 stitches from needle*, repeat from * to* as necessary, until last stitch, k1

2. Measure your swatch. How many inches wide and high is the lace portion (don’t include the selvage edges) of your swatch?

3. Decide on shawl dimensions and calculate required stitches. Let’s say you want a shawl that is 66″ long and 20″ wide with a selvage of approximately 1″ at each end. Divide the width of desired lace portion (64″) by the width of the lace portion of your swatch (say 4.25″), you need approximately 15 times the number of stitches as you had in the lace portion of your swatch. Each swatch above has 24 stitches of lace, so in this example, multiply 15 times by 24 stitches to get 360 stitches total. The number of sititches needs to be divisible by the required number of stitches in your lace repeat (all laces here are repeats of 3 or 6 and 360 is divisible by both). Add 6 sitches of garter stitch (knit on both sides) selvage to each end (12 stitches total). Add the lace stitch count (360 stitches) to the selvage stitch count (12 stitiches) for 372 stitches total.

4. Calculate required rows. To figure out how many rows you will need to knit, divide your desired shawl height (20″) by the height of your total swatch (4.5″), you need approximately 4.4 times the number of rows from your swatch (say 36) for a total of approximately 158 rows. You will want to end at the end of a lace repeat so adjust this number of rows accordingly. You can also just measure the width as you go without bothering to count rows.

5. Calculate required yardage. Although I’ve given you an approximate number above, to get a better sense of required yardage, rip out the swatch that you used for steps above. Measure the total yardage required by swatch (say 18 yards). Multiply this yardage by how many times wider the scarf will be (15 times) and by how many times higher the shawl will be (4.4). This number will suggest the approximate yardage (18 x 15 x 4.4 =1,188). Because the original swatch has 4 stitches of selvage for each row included in the yardage, it will more than make up for the added selvage width on each end of the shawl. This should be a slight overestimation.

Easy Lace Knit Shawl Pattern

Based on the above five steps with a four-row repeat lace (adjust with 6 or 8 row repeat as desired):

Cast on 372 stitches (Note: If an additional stitch is required for the lace (as in lace 3 and lace 5), add one additonal stitch to your cast on stitch count)

I’m so excited to announce that I’m officially a MarthaStewart.com contributor now. This means that I’ll be making lots of beautiful things to be featured on MarthaStewart.com. Here is my profile there. This was my first article as contributor and was published on the MarthaStewart.com Network on May 13, 2015.

Comments

beautiful stitches! I don’t know anything about knitting except the terms cast on, knit, purl, and I can do those 3 things. Because of my limited experience, I couldn’t follow the directions. Do you gave a video posted anywhere?

Thank you Pam! I don’t have a video. I’m so sorry it was hard for you to follow the directions. It’s hard at first to know how to do the new stitches when you don’t have the visual. I’d like to try to provide photographic step by steps or a video soon.

Thank you for these lovely lace stitch patterns! I was wondering if you could advise how I might convert the patterns to knit cowls on circular needles. I am a beginner knitter however, I do understand how you noted that the stitches required a certain amount of stitches plus an additional stitch. I am particularly interested in the fifth stitch pattern because I have some angora blend yarn that I would love to use and I think a lace stitch would make it more comfortable to wear.
Once again, thank you for the patterns.
Roxanne

Thanks for the wonderful explanation of lace! Being visually impaired, lace has always intimidated me, even if I could see what was going on in the pattern. Again, thank you for the great explanation, and the sample patterns!

Hi, thank you for these patterns! It’s my first attempt at anything lacy so I appreciate the clear instructions 🙂 I’m working with number 4 and it’s looking beautiful but I have found my whole piece of knitting leans to one side – so I end up making a parallelogram shape, not a nice rectangle! What do you think I am doing wrong? Thanks!!

You are amazing.New to lace knitting making a wedding shawl for my daughter to be .All the patterns seam crazy either the edges were too tight or the wrong shape .
Thanks to you I can now make her shawl.
Just a question I would like to add beads how much space would you place them every second or every 4 the rest?

I just viewed this article and really love it. I would love to receive all of your articles, please. Would it also be possible to send me any other similar instructional knitting, and instructional how-to create pattern articles that I have missed, please? Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. Let me know if you have done any instructional videos, please. I am so happy to have found your article “How to Make an Easy Lace Knit Shawl Pattern”. Best regards, Amy

This is my first time trying to knit anything lacy, and these patterns seem so approachable! I’m currently knitting a swatch of pattern 1, and I was wondering when it says to slip two stitches if you slip them both at the same time, as in a k2tog, or separately – one at a time? Or does that not matter that much since they are then passed over the next stitch? Thanks!

First off, THANK YOU!!! I have a hard time completing patterns “As Written”. If I run into a section I’m not too fond of, I calculate rows & stitches & yardage to adjust the pattern to something that suites me. I spend hours reworking & swatching, with yarn that’s comparable to whatever luxurious yarn I’m completing my project with, but MUCH less expensive so I don’t ruin my nicer yarn during the creative stage of my alterations LOL! Right now I’m working on the “Cambria Wrap” by Two of Wands, by Alexandra Tavel. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE her patterns & style! Mostly because I rarely run into sections I feel the need to alter to my liking. But, here I am, swatching something a little more appealing to me 😬. I read through the comments & didn’t come across anything about which way to slip the stitch in “Lace Pstern 5”. So I referred back to the Key;
– Psso: pass slipped stitch over (see note above)
I found this note in “Lace Pattern 1”
(Note: Slipping a stitch simply means moving a stitch from your left hand needle to your right. In this case, you put the needle into the stitch as if you were going to knit. Then, as you slide it, the part of the stitch (or leg) that sits in front of the needle switches which is part of the design.)
Does this mean that a sl1 is always slipped knitwise in all 5 of the lace patterns?

HI Lindsay! I’m so sorry for my delayed response here. I somehow missed your comment. THanks so much for your kind words! Yes, when you slip a stitch you should do it knitwise. But when you refer to PSSO, you are passing the stitch that you already slipped knitwise over the last stitch. So you aren’t slipping again. Does this make sense to you?
Anne